[Mono-list] Ubuntu

[Daniel Hughes]

Ubuntu does not believe it is its responsibility to update mono
between OS releases.

Mono does not believe it is its responsibility to provide ubuntu
packages for new mono releases.

Users fall into a gap between the two. And must compile from source or
use unsupported third party PPA's if and when they are available.

This is the way it is and this discussion shows that it will not
change. Thank you all for explaining this to me. I see no reason for
any further discussion here.

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 1:14 PM, Andreia Gaita <shana.ufie at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 12:38 AM, Daniel Hughes <trampster at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Quote
>> "so my team plays a double role there (OpenSUSE) or distributions
>> where Mono is not included by default"
>>
>> So if ubuntu did not support mono by including it by default. Then you
>> would package it. Ubuntu would get first class support from the mono
>> team. We would get new versions of mono as they are released and so
>> mono support on ubuntu would be improved.
>
> I could be wrong, but I think you don't understand how packaging works
> in linux distributions, which is why you're not "getting" the
> explanations that have been put forth already.
>
> The developer of the application provides the code, and the
> distribution packages it. Each distro has their own rules and software
> for packaging, as well as package mantainers and their own schedule
> for providing new versions of packages. If a distro chooses to not
> update a package to a more current version, it can be because of many
> things: 1) they have custom patches that need porting 2) they prefer
> not to touch system packages until the next major distro release 3)
> they have long qa/approval cycles for updates 4) a million other
> reasons, as miguel explained earlier.
>
> We do the best we can supporting OSs and distros that don't have
> package maintainers (or not even a concept of that) or where we're the
> maintainers ourselves. We're not the Debian or Ubuntu maintainers. Go
> look at the homepages of pretty much any software available on Ubuntu
> and note that they don't provide packages, just tarballs. That's how
> things work in the Linux world. I think we all understand your
> frustration about this, but insisting on it when everyone has
> explained it to you repeatedly is not going to make it happen any
> differently. Ubuntu is extremely well supported, it's dead easy to
> compile your own Mono if you want, you can use Jo's PPA if you prefer,
> there's basically a bunch of different ways to update Mono on your
> system with little effort.
>
> You might not like how the Linux packaging process works, but that's
> how it is, and discussing the pros and cons of particular philosophy
> is a topic for other mailing lists, I think.
>
> andreia gaita
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